#Thanksgiving: Tracking the Turkey On Social Media

If your newsfeed is anything like mine, the hashtag Thanksgiving has been giving you food hallucinations for the last couple of weeks. Using Talkwalker’s social media analytics tool, I was able to track and comment on a few of the most associated hashtags to this beloved American holiday.

Most popular hashtags associated with Thanksgiving over the last week

#Thanksgiving – A Worldwide Phenomenon?

Our social media monitoring tool revealed a total of 397,200 mentions on social over the last week alone. No surprise there! However this remains an American holiday with very little echo in other regions of the world. The only other continent worth mentioning is maybe Europe, which many Americans have elected as their new or temporary home. Our data shows that the United Kingdom may still be an interesting ground for Thanksgiving-related marketing, along with France and Germany.

Regional distributions of the mentions Thanksgiving/#TurkeyDay/Thanksgiving on the European continent

#Christmas – Craving the Holiday Season

Yet more proof that patience is a virtue very few of us possess. We have not even started the Thanksgiving break and many are already thinking Christmas gifts, Christmas trees and Christmas recipes! I get it though, it is the magic of the holiday season that makes the Christmas hashtag appear in over 13,500 posts talking about #Thanksgiving in just one week! To be fair, people also extensively discussed New Year and Halloween.

#Turkey - The King of the Feast

On top of all discussions, one seminal question for the all mighty bird: will you be broiled, fried, roasted, or even steamed?

Hourly mentions of the #Turkey hashtag over the last week

There were also several suggestions as to what drinks one should enjoy while preparing said turkey: I’m partial to this intriguing apple cider mimosa.

#Fitness – Social Resolutions before New Year

There are those planning the feast, and those already taking resolutions to run, fast or generally lose weight once the fall break is over in preparation for a busy Christmas holiday. The question is not even about eating healthy on Thanksgiving (Talkwalker tracked that hashtag a mere 2,650 times in Thanksgiving posts over the last month!) but rather about treating the aftermath of the feast. Enjoy the turkey, we will worry about these extra pounds in January.

Source : Giphy

#BlackFriday – Who Has the Best Social Media Campaign?

Because who doesn’t like a good deal? According to Talkwalker’s Smart Themes, the Twittersphere’s most trending brands when discussing Black Friday plans or preparedness range from Walmart to Microsoft and Best Buy, with a clear bias towards the technology industry. Yet some companies are more skilled than others when it comes to creating a buzzworthy social media campaign. Talkwalker’s brand listening IQ App is a great tool to uncover insights from all social media conversation.

Most popular brands associated with Thanksgiving on Twitter

#Vegan – A Social Media Lifestyle

Social media analytics revealed that there were a total of 29,600 mentions of vegan or vegetarian Thanksgiving across social media over the last month. An interesting aspect of the vegan hashtag was the heavy reliance of this specific customer audience on a set of influencers for new and delicious recipes. Kristina Carillo-Bucaram (@FullyRaw), a big proponent of the raw vegan lifestyle living in Texas, is one of these cross-platform trend setters with 735,000 followers on Instagram, 670,000 subscribers on YouTube and over 38,000 followers on Twitter.

Top vegan influencers on Instagram and Twitter for Thanksgiving

Who can blame them when confronted with this kind of picture?

Keep your competitors close and your influencers closer

So what have we learned from all this hunger inducing Thanksgiving chat? Widespread events such as Thanksgiving are a great opportunity for brands to better understand the nature and needs of its customers, to analyze the strategy of direct competitors, as well as to identify the most relevant influencers.

Albane is a member of the Talkwalker content team, as well as the person in charge of marketing operations on the French-speaking market. When she's not writing about social media, you'll either find her with her nose in a book, swinging away on the course or planning her next trip.

Follow her on Twitter for amazing tweets on social media analytics, European affairs & obscure golf references.